On the morning of January 24, ICE agents murdered Alex Pretti while he was on the street volunteering to help keep his city safe. By the end of the day one of my children saw me watching video of a congressional representative speaking against ICE and asked about it. I do not know the best response for their young age. I tried to be honest but limited, and said something about one part of the government hurting somebody and this other politician trying to help. My child cut right to it, asking if they “killed” and if that meant it was a “war”. I answered and we quickly moved on to normal kid activities. Their level of understanding for those words is unclear to me. I wish we lived in a world where it was not important to learn. Alas.
Death and grappling with mortality is part of human existence. With regard to parenting in America today, school shootings, active shooter drills, and gun violence in general are infamous but they are not unique. ICE is kidnapping and killing people in our cities, violence directed by our highest level of government against our own society. The climate crisis is accelerating, but the metaphorical and actual policy of the Federal government is to procure more fuel for the fire. As a culture, as a gerontocracy, we don’t seem to have a way to tell kids about how much climate change is going to harm them. US geopolitical and military policy is becoming less predictable. The federal government has abandoned the WHO and seems intent on causing children to die from vaccine preventable diseases. It is not right for a child to be burdened with these thoughts, much less suffer the problems directly, but unless they learn they will not be equipped to enter the world on their own as responsible independent people.
Day to day, cars are the visceral threat that children are exposed to and must be aware of. Whether they live in Manhattan or rural Idaho, they have to know something about the danger of cars. To be strapped into car seats, then to use seat belts. To avoid stepping in front of a car in their own driveway or a parking lot. To look when crossing a street. To follow a pattern at the school drop-off lane to stay out of harms away. To follow the rules while riding their bikes and be on the lookout for all of the drivers who do not. To start driving themselves before graduating high school. Government policy has caused it to be impossible for parents to responsibly raise a child without instructing them, albeit often by example, about the danger of cars.
Urbanism, broadly speaking, is the best way to study this danger and in turn communicate it to children at a deeper level. To find the terminology and frameworks to understand it. To tie it to the systematic flaws of our society and thus link it to other aspects of harm against marginalized groups. Learning does not mean selling your car and SFH and moving to an apartment by a train station, but it does enable having more serious conversations.
It is no coincidence that ICE has directed its terror campaign primarily against Minneapolis and other cities rather than, e.g., rural areas where land is owned by rich conservatives paying undocumented workers inadequate wages. But ICE murdering Pretti cannot be well understood that way. It is a tragedy that entails many of America’s pathologies. We should all remember Pretti. Children should learn about all of those dangers that other people have created. They have to start somewhere, and there’s no better place than the automotive danger in front of them.